Europe Online Gambling Update – Romania & Ireland

In the past few weeks there have been some interesting updates in both Eastern and Western Europe regarding gambling legislation and taxation changes. The pattern seems to be that countries are realizing the economic benefits of legalizing and regulating offline and online gambling activities. However, these feats are not easy and pose a lot of obstacles for organizations and governments alike to overcome.

The open and liberal sentiment in some countries has also pushed other countries into reacting in opposite ways. One such example is Romania. The Romanian government has recently declared a new anti online gambling law which is enforced by a regulatory body which will censor internet activity and blacklist online casinos currently accepting Romanian players or websites which are advertising any sort of casino or casino-related product to Romanian online traffic. The government identifies such websites and then notifies the Romanian internet service providers that they need to block the site within 12 hours or face heavy penalties. Interestingly, there is no law in place that states that the internet service providers need to comply with these regulations. However, it’s most likely only a matter of time before the government passes the necessary laws.

On a more democratic note, Ireland has been considering regulating and taxing online gambling activities and recently announced that there is a new gambling law which will be announced in early 2012. This announcement echoes the sentiment of other Western European countries (Italy, Germany, Austria, to name a few) whose governments understand the best way to combat problem, illegal and underage gambling is to regulate the online casino companies. The money from the proposed taxation plan will also include allotting funds to treatment facilities for problem gamblers.